By Kaitlyn Dunphy, Esq. and Elisabeth Yucis
In May of 2024, NJEA championed legislation that suspended student growth objectives, or SGOs, for the 2024-25 school year for tenured teachers with existing SGOs. That law also created the New Jersey Educator Evaluation Review Task Force, which met over the course of several months between July and September of 2024. Of the 13 voting members of the task force, NJEA was represented by Vice President Steve Beatty, Certification, Evaluation and Tenure Committee Chair Dayna Orlak and PDII Associate Director Elisabeth Yucis.
The task force, comprising NJEA and other stakeholder groups, worked to make recommendations to improve and streamline the educator evaluation process. Their aim was to enhance student achievement while supporting the growth of educators and lessening the administrative burdens placed upon them.
The task force issued a report with its recommendations on Sept. 30, 2024. The report can be read in full at njea.org/eval-tf-report.
The task force’s recommendations follow three major themes. The first is to reexamine how the law’s requirement to use multiple measures of student learning in teacher evaluation is currently implemented through SGOs. While the TEACHNJ statute directs districts to create their own methods for measuring student growth in nontested subjects, the only option available in regulation is the existing SGO system. The task force recommends integrating the “multiple measures” requirement into already existing regulations concerning professional development plans, rather than treating them separately.
The second “bucket” of task force recommendations concerns flexibilities in the current regulations that can be used more widely. For example, when educators are rated highly effective, it is permissible to use commissioner-approved activities for an evaluation in place of a more traditional in-class observation. However, this is not in widespread use, and the only existing commissioner-approved option for highly effective educators is significantly more time-consuming than a traditional observation. The task force suggests a process for districts to submit alternative practices for approval. It would also encourage the use of an expanded bank of commissioner-approved options, and to extend this practice to teachers rated as effective, rather than to only those rated highly effective.
The task force also proposes enhanced guidance and training, particularly with respect to existing flexibilities in the current evaluation scheme, such as districts’ ability to adjust category weights in their evaluation instruments, or that evaluations do not have to take place in the traditional classroom setting or have numerical scores.
The task force notes that its report should be only the starting point of improving educator evaluation. To this end, it advocates for convening an implementation working group to begin the work on implementing the recommendations of the report. In fact, Gov. Phil Murphy calls for the immediate formation of an implementation working group in the press release announcing the release of the task force’s report.
Lastly, the task force advises that the legislation pausing SGOs be extended until the regulatory changes and implementation of its recommendations can be achieved. At press time, legislation, A-5077, has been introduced and passed in the Assembly to do just that.
Kaitlyn Dunphy is an associate director of NJEA Legal Services and Member Rights in the NJEA Executive Office. She can be reached at kdunphy@njea.org.
Elisabeth Yucis is an associate director in the NJEA Professional Development and Instructional Issues Division (PDII). She can be reached at eyucis@njea.org.